Infectious Rhythm identifies and explores the metaphor of 'contagion' that both celebrates the diasporic spread of African culture, and serves as the justification of its repression. The study includes the association with the AIDS pandemic. "Infectious Rhythm fills an important gap in the literature on AIDS and international race relations. In a style as lyrical as it is tough-minded, Browning offers a brilliant reading of figures of transmission, both viral and cultural. This eloquent book provides the most powerful testimony yet to how metaphors of seepage and contamination are, from the outset, expresssions of social fear and political anxiety." -- Diana Fuss"Browning is a clear writer and a creative thinker who eschews postmodern jargon to a large degree, even while elaborarting on concepts at the movement's core." -- Journal of Cultural Geography, Steven C. Dinero, Philadelphia College